Week 56

La Gloria Celestial

 

Well one week here in Coatepec and i am absolutely in love with this area.  i swear its been everything Ive been waiting for my whole mission.  basically everything i have complained about my mission doesnt exist here haha.  It´s cold here, basically that sums up a lot.  But the work here is going real nice.  We have a baptism this sunday, and the sunday after, and hopefully we have a miracle for the 16th, we have a family for that day, but its not set completely yet, but ill talk about her in a sec.

Its been great this week though, we hit the ground running here, and im excited for that.  Its the first companion in a long time that hasnt been dead, so thats exciting.  He literally takes talk with everyone literally, and i absolutely love that!  Its something i havent been good at, but he just talks to everyone, no fear in that little man.  

 

My district is great as well,  I have the two assistents, and elder santos(my old companion), and his companion.  So its really fun.  I dont have to pressure them either which is nice, we are setting up what we called a bautidistritomes, where each of us baptizes every week of the month of octuber.  Its a huge goal of mine that i really want to work out,  so we are working super hard for that.

A really cool experience happened to me this week, i think it was thursday.  In the morning i had studied D&C 29, and it talks a lot about the plan of salvation, but verse 39 really stuck out to me in the morning and it says

 

39 And it must needs be that the devil should tempt thechildren of men, 

or they could not be agents untothemselves; for if they never should have bitter 

they could not know the sweet—

 

So I read that in the morning, really liked it, kept on studying, and yeah.  Later that day we had a lesson with someone that i had yet met, and she is great.  her husband is member, and they have two children who are yet members, but they have had some huge problems in their marriage, and she has been struggling a lot.  So we started to teach her, and I decided I would share that same scripture with her, and she really was touched by that scripture, so we invited her to know the sweet.  Still hasnt accepted baptism yet, but she came to church even though she had other plans set, and she was sitting with her husband.  I cant explain it well, but it was a huge testimony builder for me because i had yet met her, but the lord was preparing me to be a tool in his hands.

 

Besides that all is happy, im going to chilis tomorrow, so im super happy.

 

Love you all!

Elder Hodson

Week 55

Coatepec El pueblo magico

Changeeeeesssss woooh, i am going to an area called coatepec.  And as far as ive heard it is amazing there(also that it is the coffee capital of mexico)!  I will be serving as district leader with elder Perez, and I am honestly so excited to be able to go to xalapa!  I was only in this area for 5 weeks haha, but im honestly super excited to be able to serve in that area, and ive already got some references from a super awesome member who is from coatepec who has a ton of family there, so i promised her id baptize her family if she came to the baptisms haha.

Besides that not much news,  this week was a hard week for us, lots of dry contacts and people that dont have any desire to be blessed and be recieved in the glory of god.

 

Something i love to study and is a great thing to study is grace.  But i honestly cannot explain it as well as brad wilcox, so i invite you all to listen to his grace is sufficient by brad wilcox.  One of my favorite parts is when he says "Heaven wont be heaven for those who are not heavenly". This life and our purpose is to live with our heavenly father, and now my desire is to help others to recognize why that is so important.  

I love you all!
Elder Hodson

 

 

Week 54

La villa

 

Well another week.  Zika was not bad!  Maybe i didnt have zika, but i might have who knows.  My companion had a fever, and a lot more symptoms, but i just had the red dots.  Im just lucky i guess.  But yeah we didnt do much this week because of that.

Of the things we did do, all went well.  Two of our most certain investigators sadly dont want anything to do with us anymore, because of social pressure.  Its so sad to see a person get so close to reaching salvation, and a better life, then letting it go because of social pressure.

 

We had zone conference and stake conference, so it was lots of conference.  Zone conference was sweet though! Instead of focusing on things that really never change and unreachable desires, they talked about the basics of teaching.  And i think a lot of us realized our teaching always needs to improve.  It was good.  The zone leaders and assistants taught the classes, it was fun.  Stake conference as well went good, lots of missionary work talk.  There were two little girls that gave talks, and they brought a stronger spirit than the rest of the talks haha.  

Today we went out and went pyramid hunting, and we saw a little hidden waterfall.  It was pretty awesome, ill throw some pics in.

 

Besides that work is fun, just keeping on!  Next week are changes, so more than likely ill be losing my white friend, and itll be back to real life haha.

 

Love you all! 

Elder Hodson

 

 

Week 53

Hump daaaaaaaaay

So with this was my hump week, so that was interesting!  We didnt do much special, but i did my traditional shirt burning, and worked haha.  It was a good day though, i did some rethinking and some goal setting for this next year, and i have some solid goals i would like to complete, so im started off running again haha.

Im enjoying this area a lot, its still a hard area, but we have some awesome members, and we have found a decent amount of investigators, but we feel like this area has some sort of curse on it, because every investigator we find that is "gold" ends up with some sort of struggle, but its really teaching us patience, as well as problem solving.

 

On a sad note, i think im getting a disease called zika, my entire body is covered in red dots, and my companion as well has it.  Its zika, chinkonguya or dengue, but we are gonna see what happens.  I dont feel sick at all, but my body is covered in red dots.  so its going to be a rest week for sure!  But i keep telling my body to not get sick, so im not gonna get sick.

 

I have been studying a lot this week about the atonement of jesus christ, and i like the simple fact that atonement means to be at one.  As we come to use the power of the atoning sacrifice that jesus did for us, we will become more at one with him, and the closer we are to him the closer we are to becoming perfect like he is.  I invite you all to study a little bit about the atonement each day, its amazing the change in attitude it brings!

 

Love you all!

Elder Hodson